Circus-A-Day Recaps of Weeks 9 & 10

We spent weeks 9 & 10 of our Circus-a-Day project travelling to conventions so we are combining them into one blog…

Day 57: Circus Costumes & Tesla Shock Photo

Our second day vending at AnachroCon: Today we dressed in our circus costumes and met some other people who used old circus folk as inspiration for their costumes too! Then, in the evening we watched a Tesla coil demonstration and M managed to snap a photo just as the spark connected between the two men. If you zoom in on the photo you can actually see the little lightning spark connecting their fingers!

Day 58: Burlesque Pasties

So, today involved vending for the last day of AnachroCon, tearing down and loading up the Frenzy Universe Traveling Show, M being contorted in the van during loading and having to crawl out of tiny spaces and twist in weird ways to get it all pickle-packed back in the van, and driving to Meridian, Mississippi for the night. Sometimes the circus is all work and no play. However, we did meet a lovely lady who happens to make burlesque costumes who really wanted a poofy petticoat dress we had, but only had her handmade pasties to barter with, so we picked out some circus ones and made the trade! She threw in a brief lesson on how to make the tassles spin. We haven’t tried that yet. (There will NOT be photos of that!)

 Day 59: Gypsy King & Queen

We started the day trying to find the graves of the Gypsy King and Queen, Emil Mitchell and Kelly Mitchell, respectively. We drove all over Meridian, MS because we got terrible directions. Then we stopped and asked for help and found out we were on the wrong side of town! We finally found them and it was lovely to see all the little gifts people left them. We left an orange, some frenzy pennies and some gold dollars. We also saw a bunch of decorated carousel horses in front of the businesses of downtown Meridian. Colorful and whimsical, our favorite!

Day 60: Alien Circus Drawing (K) & Carlsbad Cavern Rock Formation Photos (M)

We spent most of the day in the van today, driving across Texas. That is a BIG state!! M has a lead foot and so managed to get us to Carlsbad Caverns in time to get in on the last tour time of the day and we saw the Doll Theatre and Lion’s Tail rock formations! Then we drove to Roswell, NM to spend the night and K decided to make an alien circus! M is counting the photos she took at the caverns.

Day 61: SandPunk Lion Tamer & Lion

We crashed in Roswell, NM last night (hahaha! Yep, I said it!) and spent part of the day in an awesome antique store in downtown where we found many wonderful things and a few circusy things. Then, on our way to Tucson, we stopped at White Sands National Park and played on the dunes! K had the brilliant idea of making sand art and so we made a SandPunk Circus Lion Tamer and Lion. We used M’s body for the Lion Tamer and made her lie down in the sand as if she were making a snow angel, then added the top hat and whip.

Day 62: Booth Signage & Modded Men’s Vest

We set up the booth for Wild Wild West Con today and K had to finish up the last of the signage for our merchandise. M finally finished the modding of the formerly white double-breasted vest by adding the fedora buttons she has been hoarding for ages. That’s all we got finished today, folks. We had so much other stuff for the business to get done and we fully intended to get some food and some sleep before the convention started!

Day 63: Circus Costume Photos at Old Tucson Studios

Today was Day 1 of Wild Wild West Con at Old Tucson Studios, quite possibly the best-looking venue we have ever vended at! We dressed in our circus costumes and got some great shots using the old west village as backdrop. We also got to see Steam Powered Giraffe perform and were super excited by their combination of music and comedy and their awesome theatrical makeup!

Day 64: Cat Statues & Carousel Photos

We stopped at the International Wildlife Museum on the road out to Old Tucson Studios to have a photo op with some of the beautiful cat statues! Then we played around the Carousel before the event opened. We were also serenaded by the fun and amazing musical stylings of Steam Powered Giraffe as our booth was right next to the stage! They are superfun and were willing to pose with GingerSnap!

Day 65: Bike Church

We passed this little gazebo every day of the convention and finally stopped to check it out. We were not disappointed. The entire thing is made of bike parts such as chassis, wheel spokes, gears. Very awesome and totally Steampunk looking. Oh, and colorful with the stained glass windows. It had a plaque stating it was Bike Church and dedicated to the memory of some people but not why it was built. We thought it was very cool and lovely!

Day 66: Nelly Bly Kaleidoscopes

Today was a driving day. We left Tucson, headed for Flagstaff and made a few stops in the Verde Valley: Jerome and Sedona. We visited quite possibly the coolest store on the planet – Nelly Bly – that is full of amazing and beautiful kaleidoscopes from all over the world in every shape and configuration imaginable! The photos in this album were taken in Jerome. Our camera battery died on us in Sedona so the circusy photos from there are on M’s phone but she forgot to pack the cord necessary to pull them off, so they will be shared later. We also had our auras photographed in Sedona and it was interesting to discover we are the exact opposites and complements to each other!

Day 67: Meteorites & Kaleidoscopes

We visited some amazing places today and have chosen to use our photography as our circus. We hope you all bear with us as we are still a few days away from home and will start making more things once we have access to all our tools and supplies.

First we have us trying to steal a meteorite (it didn’t work) and second we have a photo K took using our new camera kaleidoscope! There will be lots more photos like that as time goes by and we get better at centering the kaleidoscope to get good shots.

 Day 68: Cadillac Ranch

Another driving day, but this time we stopped in Amarillo, TX at the famous Cadillac Ranch. If only we had known it was perfectly acceptable to bring your own spray paint! We had to scrounge for a sharpie marker so we could leave our temporary mark. I am sure it has been painted over by now. It was very windy, but well worth the little side trip. So many colors!!!

K scavenged some rusted old pieces that had fallen off the cars and were painted all pretty to make some jewelry”¦ look for some limited edition Cadillac Ranch pretties from Frenzy Universe in the near future!

Day 69: Candy Galore!

Look at all the colors!!! We stumbled across the Candy Factory in Missouri. And by stumble I mean anxiously anticipated the exit after being bombarded with billboards for it for about 20 miles! We weren’t disappointed. 1,000 different snacks!! We didn’t make the candy, but the jig M did when we walked into the shop and saw all the deliciousness was definitely a performance of circus proportions! We bought about 4 pounds of candy and barely scratched the surface of their offerings!

Day 70: Umm… nothing. Sorry.

That was yesterday. M is totally admitting she did NOT do anything circus unless unloading the van counts (which did involve feats of strength and mild contortionism). There was pretty much no energy left for anything after that. Sorry, folks, roadtrip exhaustion took over and I will try to make up for it in the next few days!